Don't call him a historian - he's a storyteller

Thursday

Lexington author Philip McFarland had been all over the country by the time he was ready buy a house with his wife, Pat. But New England won his heart and that’s where they chose to settle.

Lexington author Philip McFarland had been all over the country by the time he was ready buy a house with his wife, Pat. But New England won his heart and that’s where they chose to settle.

Since then, McFarland has used the rich history of New England’s people and places as subjects for his books, featuring previous titles like “The Brave Bostonians: Hutchinson, Quincy, Franklin and the Coming of the Revolution,” and “Hawthorne in Concord.”

In his most recent book, “Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe,” McFarland uses the Connecticut-born author as a lens to view 19th century American history.

McFarland said he was drawn to Beecher Stowe not only because of the significance of her masterwork, the inflammatory and progressive “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” but also the strength of the woman herself.

“[‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’] was aimed at making slaves human beings,” McFarland said. “She did it brilliantly, and awaked the sensibilities of the North. She fought, and she fought for what she believed in.

“She was suddenly lifted from poverty to being the most famous woman in America,” he said. “She was deeply religious, and she needed to be to get through the things she had to get through. She had a lot to endure beyond her triumphs, and she had many triumphs.”

The book uses the lives of Beecher Stowe’s three loves, her father Lyman Beecher, her husband Calvin Stowe, and her younger brother Henry Ward Beecher, to paint a picture of the century when America grew from adolescence to adulthood. Beecher Stowe’s father and brother were prominent men in America on their own right, and through her correspondence with her husband, many of her own qualities are revealed.

“I wanted to do more than write a formal biography,” McFarland said. “I found that unnecessary.”

McFarland, 78, began his love affair with New England when he received a full scholarship from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. McFarland was 15 years old, and remembers well the train ride with his two brothers from Birmingham, Ala. where the three grew up. The school gave them each $12 a day for spending money for the ride.

“It was really an amazing scholarship,” McFarland said. “I fell in love with New England when I came up here.”

From Exeter he went on to Oberlin College in Ohio, where he majored in history. After college he joined the Navy, where for nearly four years he was stationed on the West Coast.

After leaving the service, he received his master’s degree in English from Cambridge University in England.

English degree in hand, he returned to the United States and knew where he wanted to live.

“Having experienced the West, the Midwest, the South and New England, the place that continued to haunt me was New England,” he said.

McFarland worked with Houghton-Mifflin editing textbooks, and was told in 1968 that in order to become a writer, not an editor, he would need classroom experience. In 1965, he got a job teaching at Concord Academy, then a school for girls, fully expecting to say only a few years before going back to Houghton-Mifflin.

“As it turned out, I discovered I liked to teach more than I liked to write textbooks,” he said.

McFarland ended up staying at Concord Academy for 30 years. He retired in 1995.

While he was still teaching, the school commissioned a book about its own history, authored by McFarland.

“Having moved around the buildings on campus for a certain amount of time, I started to wonder who the people were that these buildings were named after,” McFarland said.

It was also through his time at Concord Academy that he got his idea for the book “Hawthorne in Concord.”

It is often that way with McFarland, who finds interest in a new subject as he is writing a book about another. As he researched Nathaniel Hawthorne, he found that the author published a book, “The Blythedale Romance,” almost at the exact time “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was released. That led him to a closer study of Beecher Stowe.

Although the majority of his works are non-fiction, McFarland tries to use a narrative style to keep the subject matter interesting.

“I think of myself more of a writer that chooses historic topics,” he said. “I’m synthesizing material to tell a good story.”

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